The card table / Cherrycoke's early activism / Rees on Wittgenstein

[Michael Bailey]

 Mark Smith wrote
>  The
> depth and complexity of wood grain can be both enchanting and
> threatening... like narrative and memory itself, as you rightly point
> out.
>

although Tenebrae and the twins can't say they've yet been to the end
of the card table's mysteries, it's likely that Mr or Mrs LeSpark
could; and if it were a hand-me-down from Mrs L's family, then Wicks
Cherrycoke may have a good knowledge of it from his childhood (he's
brother of the Mrs, right?)...just musing

Wicks Cherrycoke's suppression is interesting.  He's a remittance man
(like Wayvone Jr in Vineland, but by reason of politics rather than
incompetence) because his initial encounter with society's injustice
led him to a sort of blogging on the streets of London - and the
ruling classes had very little tolerance of such.  Real life
pamphleteers abounded in both England and the colonies: I think that
Tom Paine was one such.
Much of the activism was given vitality by religion, especially the
Quaker faith (Paine was raised a Quaker) which is also portrayed in
Stephenson's Quicksilver.
(although Cromwell's Roundheads were more prominent in the story, I
think that it was Quakers who fought off the bearbaiters in the park
eg)

I'm at work and can't check, but I think Wicks is C of E so that
wouldn't hold for him, not exactly.  Still, the tenets of Christianity
do hold out a hope of moral authority to which even kings are subject.

The rude shock of physical retribution by those against whose
injustice one is trying to organize (like what also happened to the
Beckers in Vineland, Sachsa in GR) and how Cherrycoke copes would make
a good term paper .... just musing

---------- I found a seriocomic exegesis/sendup of the Tractatus, by
following the link called "Me and the Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus"
on this page http://www.mnftiu.cc/mnftiu.cc/links.html (GYWO and
MNFTIU are both a lot of fun as well) I will probably get around to
reading "The Education of Henry Adams" (we covered The Virgin and the
Dynamo in Lit class back in the days of typewriters, and I remember
liking it) before I try my wits on Wittgenstein